Mounties called to bust chaotic minor hockey brawl

An Interlake bantam minor hockey playoff game in Stonewall got out of hand Sunday, March 30, between the Stonewall Blues and Lake Manitoba First Nation. A linesman was kicked and punched by players while he was laying on the ice while some spectators fought in the stands, said RCMP. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

QMI Agency

Mounties in Stonewall were called in after a hockey game involving 14-year-olds turned ugly Sunday, both on the ice and in the stands.

RCMP say the incident happened just before 4:30 p.m. during the third period of a Bantam A minor hockey league championship game between teams from Stonewall and Lake Manitoba First Nation.

One of the referees may have been struck by one of the players, RCMP said, while some parents were fighting in the stands.

Peter Mandryk, president of Stonewall Minor Hockey, was timekeeping at the game and said it was the deciding game in a best-of-three series, which had not had any violent incidents in the two games prior. Mandryk said Stonewall went up 3-0 and things quickly deteriorated. He said a Lake Manitoba player kicked a Stonewall player and, when being escorted from the ice, “started pushing and shoving with the ref.”

In the third period, Mandryk said, a skirmish took place in front of the Stonewall goal.

“Their biggest kid jumped our smallest kid and I guess was trying to get something going, they were rolling around on the ice and the linesmen and refs went in to break it up and our guys got our kid out of there. Our kids went to the bench and it was just LakeMan guys and refs skirmishing.

“It just looked like a big melee. Pretty unacceptable behaviour, in my opinion.”

“It was pretty bad,” he said. “Shortly after (the third goal) their first kid kicked one of our kids and got a match (penalty) for that and, on the way out, started pushing and shoving with the ref and got another match.

The game was stopped and approximately 100 people were cleared from the arena. Nobody was reported injured, RCMP said.

Hockey Manitoba president Peter Woods once again stressed an incident like this is considered rare when calculating the number of games played in the province in a season.

“(My reaction) is probably the same as everyone else,” he said. “It’s not an attractive part of our sport. We do recognize that we have probably have 30,000 members, 1,700 teams, and they’ve maybe played 30 games each, so you’re looking at 25,000, 26,000 games a year and incidents like that are going to happen. It’s part of the package and something we have to deal with, but they are few and far between.”

RCMP spokeswoman Tara Seel said police are continuing interviews and said there are many “different versions of what happened.”

“We’re trying to piece together what exactly did take place and who’s responsible,” she said.

Seel said people were separated and removed from the rink, but no arrests have been made.

“I know that there were reports and complaints that the referee had been physically assaulted. I don’t know the veracity of those because our members weren’t on the scene. They’re in the process now of getting statements and doing those interviews.”

Attempts by the Sun to reach someone at Lake Manitoba First Nation were unsuccessful.